


no irony

by foundatlantis



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Private School, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 01:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21110672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundatlantis/pseuds/foundatlantis
Summary: 'Sorry,’ said Aziraphale, ‘I didn’t know what to bring, so I brought everything.’‘Aha,’ said the boy absently, ‘alright, where we headed to?’‘Uh… Heaven House?’‘Oh, sure,’ the boy nodded, ‘its just there.’‘Thank you,’ said Aziraphale, and stepped after him.■good oмenѕ × prιvaтe ѕcнool aυ■...ɪ sʟɪᴛʜᴇʀᴇᴅ ʜᴇʀᴇ ғʀᴏᴍ ᴇᴅᴇɴ ᴊᴜsᴛ ᴛᴏ sɪᴛ ᴏᴜᴛsɪᴅᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴅᴏᴏʀ...





	no irony

**Author's Note:**

> No tired sigh, no rolling eyes  
No irony  
No "Who cares?", no vacant stare  
No time for me
> 
> Honey, you're familiar, like my mirror years ago  
Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on his sword  
Innocence died screaming; honey, ask me, I should know  
I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door

They met on the broad, sand-pebbled drive, air pooling with a soft crunch and the oily scent of expensive tires, and the sky stirred with a clear, bright morning in September.

Aziraphale’s suitcase had staggered on its narrow wheels, and stopped short in the thinly cropped grass that ran in stripes along the Northern ribs of the School Chapel. The bones of it were cut of glittering, dim-golden stone, and its peak sunk into the gray clouds – the scarce sunlight threw its cool shadow over the pebbled drive; and Aziraphale.

The school’s tall, thin windows carved into the stone of the building on his right: sand-golden, light-brown, dimly beige, all glittering in the frail, reddish glow that streamed through the tinted glass. The building frowned at him from across the gray road which was hemmed with a dry, wooden fence.

Aziraphale tugged at the suitcase, and one of the wheels wailed, and cracked, and snapped off its axis.

‘Oh, oh no,’ said Aziraphale desperately, looking across and over the drive at the wide, pointed archway of a building cut of the same gold, glittering stone as the Chapel, washed by the past century.

The suitcase was too heavy for him to lift.

‘Hey, you alright, mate?’ a voice called to him, and a sharp, pale boy slipped between the glossy glass doors of the reception building. His copper-red hair glimmered in the low, scattered light; a slip of polished paper was pinned on the flap of his uniform jacket by a lead pin shooting through it — ‘Hell House’, it read.

‘Hello,’ said Aziraphale politely, ‘I, uh, I actually need a hand. Would you mind?’

He made a gesture at the broken wheel.

‘Not at all,’ said the boy. He lifted the suitcase an inch over the large pebbles and cropped grass with some difficulty, ‘Jesus, it’s heavy.’

‘Sorry,’ said Aziraphale, ‘I didn’t know what to bring, so I brought everything.’

‘Aha,’ said the boy absently, ‘alright, where we headed to?’

‘Uh… Heaven House?’

‘Oh, sure,’ the boy nodded, ‘its just there.’

‘Thank you,’ said Aziraphale, and stepped after him.

‘Never boarded before, then?’ asked the boy, slowly crossing the drive to the pointed archway.

Aziraphale followed him through, and found himself in a hall with a rough, dirty-blue carpet laid over the floor — a glass staircase stole round the West corner, and worn wooden shelves lined with books and gray dust carved along the left wall. Thin metallic panels ran round the windows, their glass tinted a bright blue, and a dim-pink sofa curved from under the stairs.

‘Wow,’ Aziraphale let out an awed sigh, ‘oh, I, uh, no. First time.’

‘Yeah, I could tell,’ the boy set the suitcase on the dirty-blue carpet, and placed a pale hand over the top to steady it, ‘well, I can’t go any further than the common room. Find the Housemaster, he should be in his office.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Down that hall, and take the second right,’ Aziraphale looked along the boy’s hand, ‘if they haven’t changed it.’

‘Alright,’ he said, ‘thank you so much.’

‘No problem,’ said the boy, placing a hand over the glass doors, ‘see you around.’

With that he had gone, and Aziraphale found the Housemaster’s office in the room down the hallway on the second right. They hadn’t changed it.

❧

They took much of the same classes.

The Lower Sixth Form, which Aziraphale had freshly joined, entailed a choice of four subjects — such were his preferences that he had marked: English Literature, English Language, History and Art. The latter was not as much in his circle of interest as it completed his set, he thought, rather nicely.

The sharp, pale boy, whose name was Anthony J. Crowley, took History and Art also.

The Art block was a web of vast studios, a new building formed by running panels of glossy, polished glass; it was stuffed onto the old college block, and frowned down the hillside of swaying golden wheat and tanned olive trees. The second floor leveled above the first and hung over a stone-tiled patio outside the painting class.

‘Wow,’ said a voice over Aziraphale’s shoulder, and Crowley’s pale finger ran over air, along the lines of his loose graphite sketch, ‘not bad.’

He was leaning in to see closer, dressed in a bright blue coat streaked with vivid, dried lines of oil paint. The warm, light autumn wind stirred in the shimmering, golden wheat and stole through the glass door that was slipped open on his right; the scent of oiled wood, rich paints and freshly cropped grass filled the vast art studio.

‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘it’s meant to be Scotland, you see?’

‘Yeah,’ said Crowley thoughtfully, ‘well, mountains and all — anywhere near Glasgow?’

‘Yes, actually,’ said Aziraphale.

‘Yeah, I love it,’ said Crowley; a bold-faced Heaven House student, whose name was Gabriel, cut him a suspicious sidelong glance, and suddenly in a strange haste, Crowley stepped away, ‘keep it up, mate.’

He was gone, then, and Aziraphale’s pencil fell back down to the pale, creamy paper.

❧

It was midway down the first half-term that a faint whisper reached Aziraphale’s ear.

Crowley was part to Heaven House, in his Third Form.

‘You know he got kicked out, yeah?’ said Gabriel, a spiky, sharp light in his eyes, ‘back in the Third Form. They wanted to expel him, but his parents got involved. Threatened to sue.’

‘Surely, they couldn’t just do that?’ said Aziraphale, watching his face over the red plastic lunch trays.

The long, polished wooden tables ran along the broad lunch hall — from their seats upon the walls, paintings, in oil, gazed along the humming students planted row after row, locked in their heavy, golden frames.

‘Ah ah,’ said Gabriel, ‘yeah. _ But _ his parents are fucking rich, man. Nothing the school can do.’

‘Good for him,’ said Aziraphale with distaste, ‘well, so?’

‘So?’ said Gabriel, ‘so? Be careful, Zira. He’s an asshole — and dangerous, too.’

‘He’s quite nice, actually.’

‘Yeah, nice. Nice, my ass,’ said Gabriel; a dark look cracked through in his eyes, and settled there for the rest of lunch.

❧

Crowley smoked.

In the stuffy men’s bathroom lined with grease-streaked, gray tiles, he’d pressed into the narrow cut between the last cabin and the wall, and lit a short cigarette. He held it, elegantly almost, held the thin, orange-capped line between two of his pale fingers, and held it to his lips every other half a minute.

‘Won’t you get caught?’ said Aziraphale, wiping his hands dry with thin, green paper towels.

‘Nah,’ said Crowley, ‘it’s the sports loos. Couldn’t pull this off in House bathrooms, but down here...’

‘I see,’ said Aziraphale. The white, dirty toilet cabin cluster dwarfed the gentle slope of the hillside which fell away from the hem of the football pitch. The sport quads ran along the yellowing plains of wheat and short-cropped grass, and, after a training session, not many would stay down there.

‘You want some?’ asked Crowley, lifting the embering, ashen stump from his lips.

‘I’m alright, thank you,’ said Aziraphale; then, he added with uncertainty, ‘do you, uh, do heavy stuff, too?’

‘Oh, I see Gabriel’s done some work on you,’ said Crowley with a bitterness to his smile, ‘no, I don’t do pot, or acid, or anything.’

‘Well, he never actually _ said _.’

‘No, he wouldn’t,’ Crowley agreed, ‘he _ hints _ more, doesn’t he? Thinks he’s subtle, too — can you believe it?’

‘It is quite funny,’ said Aziraphale, watching Crowley put out the cigarette against the grease-streaked tile on the wall, grind it beneath his heel and slide it into the web-dressed, muddy corner.

‘They’ll find it like _ that _,’ offered Aziraphale.

‘Haven’t so far,’ Crowley shook his head, producing a lean, plastic bottle of mouth wash from his school sports kit, popping the cap and taking some. The heavy, cutting scent of mint, and synthetic, and resin shot through the stuffy air.

‘I don’t like this,’ said Aziraphale softly, ‘it’s unhealthy. Dangerous.’

‘Acid’s _ dangerous _,’ Crowley slid the half-full bottle into the kit and zipped it with a long, sharp drag, ‘this is just… this. For nerves, really.’

‘For nerves?’ said Aziraphale, ‘Jesus Christ, Crowley, there’s medicine for nerves! That’s just bad for you.’

‘What are you, a guardian angel?’ Crowley cut him a pointed sidelong glance, pooling some pearly, lavender scented soap into his palm.

‘Just saying,’ said Aziraphale, a nauseous feeling taking hold of him at the twisted fusion of the cutting mint and synthetic lavender in the air. He reached over to a narrow window cut along the wall and swung the rusty, creaking cast iron handle open.

‘The smell’s terrible,’ he said.

‘Well, better than smelling of tobacco though, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose,’ Aziraphale sighed heavily, lifting his honeycomb-netted sport bad from the floor, ‘see you, Crowley.’

‘Bye, Angel,’ Crowley smiled, slightly sickly, and the deepness of the dark lines running beneath his eyes seemed to lift for a passing moment.

Then, he looked himself again, as the door clicked shut.

❧

‘You busy this evening, Angel?’ said Crowley lightly, leaning against the stone railing of the patio — the overhanging floor threw cool, blueish shade over it, and Aziraphale fixed a thin, bright lamp over the hem of his wooden canvas holder to see in the softly falling dusk.

The disk of the sun sank slowly down into the wavering hills, melting down like glittering ice, frail, rosy light spilling like honey through the knitted clouds; the last flames of the day settled in the glass panes of the art block, the glow smothered by the minute.

‘I am,’ said Aziraphale, ‘well, until nine, anyway. Why?’

‘Wanna go cafe with me?’ Crowley smiled brightly, ‘Like, straight after dinner?’

‘Why not?’ said Aziraphale, ‘Meet me at my House, yeah?’

‘Maybe, you meet me at mine?’ offered Crowley, suddenly uncertain. _ Oh, _ Aziraphale thought, _ oh, of course. _

‘Sorry,’ he said softly, ‘I’ll meet you at yours.’

❧

‘You’ve been hanging out with Crowley a lot,’ said Gabriel with a curious caution, watching Aziraphale’s face with his sharp eyes. They sat on the dirty-pink sofa in the Heaven common room, each with an old, dusty book from the house library in hand.

‘I have,’ said Aziraphale, turning the page.

‘You, uh… you alright?’

‘Pardon?’ Aziraphale lifted his gaze, turning to face Gabriel. The boy’s face was a slight soured, his sharp features falling soft, still. In his own way, he reminded Aziraphale of colored marble statues carved into life.

‘Well, he hasn’t been selling to you, or anything?’ Gabriel’s vivid expression was tempered, guarded almost, as he supplied, ‘Or talking you into… stuff. You know, _ stuff.’ _

‘Of course not!’ a dreamy, heated light took hold of Aziraphale, ‘Of course he hasn’t, Gabriel.’

‘You do know why he got kicked out of Heaven, yeah?’ the boy asked.

‘No.’

‘Well, he tried selling to people,’ said Gabriel, dropping his voice to a soft whisper, ‘him and a bunch of others. Some got expelled, some went themselves. Some got moved to Hell House.’

‘Who else?’ said Aziraphale with caution.

‘Lucifer,’ said Gabriel, distaste cutting a sharp line in his tone, ‘Beelz, also. Hastur, Ligur. Crowley.’

‘They weren’t expelled?’

‘Rich parents,’ said Gabriel with an air of finality, shutting his book.

He never mentioned it after. Aziraphale smiled at Crowley uneasily the next time they met.

❧

‘Crowley,’ said Aziraphale uncertainly, eyeing his friend from where he laid on the plush, narrow sofa across the minute room.

Cheap strokes of paint coated the walls, and along them ran light wooden shelves — a net of soft golden fairy lights hung over the wall above the bed, over the cork board beaded in plastic capped pins that shot through yellowed photographs. Crowley’s room smelled of grinded grass and flowers and golden honey; there was a curl of cinnamon and cardboard shooting through.

‘Yeah?’ Crowley was lying over the bed, a glossy magazine in one hand, his phone in the other. From the latter, a soft tune stirred round the room.

_ ...oooh love, oooh lover boy… what’re you doing tonight, hey boy… _

‘You got kicked out of Heaven for selling?’ said Aziraphale. Crowley flinched, turned on his side and looked sharp at him.

‘What?’

‘Well, you know… Gabriel said,’ offered Aziraphale.

‘Oh, and you trust him, do you?’ Crowley said sharply; then, he let out a heavy sigh, and added, ‘no, I didn’t bloody sell, Aziraphale. Thought you’d know me better. No, I got kicked out for trying to talk people into an, uh, thing. Nothing like that, just… stealing a bit here, rebelling a bit there, you know.’

‘What’s that meant to be?’

‘Well, I don’t bloody wanna talk about it!’ said Crowley sharply.

‘Alright, alright,’ said Aziraphale, in his gently treading tones; a wondrous haze took hold of him, and he thought whether he’d better leave, ‘Sorry.’

‘Never mind,’ said Crowley, and hissed as the light tune of ‘Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy’ leaned down, broke off — giving way to a fragile grace of a lonely string.

_ ...there’s something tragic about you; something so magic about you… _

‘Oh, won’t you shut up?’ he flicked the glowing screen off, cutting the low voice short; he turned on his back, and gazed at the pale-white, tapered corner of the high ceiling.

When Aziraphale slipped outside the door ten minutes later, the frail, glimmering silence lay thin and never shattered over them.

The tension was a glinting ember in Crowley’s air the next time they spoke.

❧

The year’s golden wheel came and went, cutting its way slowly over the first two terms — at long last, the waves shed their ice cork, and poured over with a low, turquoise glint in the melting golds and coppers at the small bay half an hour down the road.

The freshly born summer breeze stirred through cupping rows of curled hedges — the rich scent of roses filled the air, pink pastels softening in the clouds.

‘Angel, say,’ said Crowley, hands folded behind his head on the floor of soft leaves, gentle flower stems and golden wheat, ‘what are you up to this summer?’

They lay on the gentle slope, falling away from the hem of the football pitch; the bright blaze of soft sunlight threw an olive tree’s stuffy shadow over them.

‘Home,’ said Aziraphale, ‘then, to Florence, with my mom. From there, dad’s picking me up, and we fly over to Paris for a quick week, then — Barcelona, then — Moscow.’

‘Fuck, you’re, like, all over the place, angel,’ said Crowley, ‘I’m just sticking with the plain old.’

‘Staying?’

‘Aha, yep.’

‘You mean, here? Surely not the whole time?’ said Aziraphale, gently breaking the stem of a plain yellow flower and turning it in his fingers, lovingly almost.

‘Parents are busy,’ said Crowley curtly, ‘might pick me up for a business trip or two, but otherwise — well, I’m stuck here.’

‘Won’t you get bored?’

‘Oh, awfully fucking bored,’ scoffed Crowley, ‘might have to even pick up a book.’

‘Ah, yes, the unthinkable,’ Aziraphale gave him a soft smile, with a curl of mocking, ‘how will you survive?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ said Crowley, a little sadly, ‘text me, angel. Call me, text me, and stuff, yeah?’

‘Of course,’ he said softly, dipping his white fingers into Crowley’s red copper hair and planting the golden flower along his locks, ‘whenever you’re bored, dear.’

Crowley smiled, and there was to it a lingering heaviness, a sadness cut short and frail in his features.

An idea took hold of Aziraphale all of a sudden.

‘You know,’ he said cautiously, ‘I could stay with you for a bit, here.’

‘You could,’ said Crowley slowly, dragging his eyes over the pale white railing of the clouds upon the sky, and turning to watch his face, ‘oh, angel, will you really?’

‘Want me to?’

‘Hell yeah,’ Crowley laughed; it held a strangled manner to it, ‘hell yeah, angel.’

‘It’s done, then,’ smiled Aziraphale with a sweet softness, and a frantic, glowing blush spilled along his cheeks when Crowley laced their fingers.

_ ...I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door... _


End file.
